


Drops of Sweat and Tears

by lea_hazel



Category: Seven Kingdoms: The Princess Problem (Visual Novel)
Genre: Bad Decisions, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Infidelity, Mind Games, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2020-01-13
Packaged: 2020-10-17 05:01:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20615402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lea_hazel/pseuds/lea_hazel
Summary: A collection of Verity of Arland ficlets from Tumblr, in no particular chronological order. These do not particularly fit into Decline & Fall's timeline, but are all canon (unless specified).Heed the tags and warnings, please.





	1. The taste of salt on the tip of your tongue

**Author's Note:**

> Verity's story is the story of a smart young woman making very stupid choices. It involved deeply unhealthy relationships, both platonic and sexual, and bad living situations. Please heed the tags and content notes!

For [faejilly](https://faejilly.tumblr.com/)'s prompt:

**[64 Sensory Prompts](http://leahazel.tumblr.com/post/179480013675/64-sensory-prompts) \- The taste of salt on the tip of your tongue**

There’s something so vulgar and repulsive about it, and she should rightly be disgusted, but she’s not. 

The sheen of sweat in the low lamplight, the heavy, musky odor of sweat, the taste of salt as she bites down on the seam of his shoulder to muffle her scream. It’s easier to ignore during the brief, surreptitious encounters they usually have. Feeling his skin on hers like this is a rare luxury. More so is undressing, properly, down to the last stitch. The slide of clean linen sheets against her skin feels somehow more perverse, as though she’s stealing something almost like normalcy and jamming it where it doesn’t belong. There’s nothing normal about what lies between them. 

“Verity,” Hyperion hisses in her ear, “_no daydreaming_.” 

She drags her fingernails down his back, just to hear him groan. 

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she says. “Did I hurt your feelings?” 

“I went to a great deal of trouble, Princess,” says Hyperion, “arranging some _private time_ for us. It would be a shame to let it go to waste.” 

“Then stop talking about it,” says Verity, “and fuck me.” 


	2. A kiss "to shut them up" - rated M

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Types of kisses: 7 - to shut them up.

For [faejilly](https://faejilly.tumblr.com/)'s prompt:

**[Types of kisses](https://leahazel.tumblr.com/post/182781321760/send-me-a-ship-and-a-number-and-i-will-write-a): …to shut them up**

The night was black as tar, but the near-full moon left a shimmering trail on the lake’s dark surface, just like a painting. It would have been an ideal scene to capture in charcoal on paper, but her own skills fell considerably short of requirement. She took a long, quiet moment to regret it, the vast gulf between the pictures painted by her imagination, and those that came out from under her hand. The most beautiful and terrible things she saw in her mind’s eye were too grand, and beyond her skills to manifest real.

The shadowy visage of Lost Lake at midnight was only the least of these.

“It’s rather late in the day, princess,” she heard a voice murmur behind her, “to be taking in the view.”

“Oh,” said Verity, “the Dowager assured me it was quite safe to walk the garden at night, so I decided I simply must take advantage of the luxury while it’s available to me.”

“One would think it’s easier to admire the view by daylight.”

“Perhaps,” she said, “but there’s a certain unique appeal to the nighttime view.”

“Knowing you,” he said, “you’ll trip on your own feet trying to navigate the garden paths after dark.”

“Break a bone,” suggested Verity.

“Yes,” he huffed, amused.

“Take a fever,” she went on. “Next thing you know, I will have gotten myself killed, all because I didn’t listen to my elders like a good little girl, and took a very dangerous after dinner stroll in a rose garden.”

“Don’t be melodramatic,” he said.

“I’m not,” she insisted. “Sentimental, perhaps, but the view at night is really much more interesting than in daylight.”

He shuffled closer behind her, until she could feel the heat radiating from him in the night’s chill.

“Go back to your room, Verity,” he said.

“I’m getting bored of this topic of conversation,” said Verity.

She felt his breath on her neck when he replied, “Then perhaps I should find something more interesting for you to do with your mouth. Or,” he paused, and took a breath, while she shivered in the sudden wind, “or you could go to your room like a good little princess, since I asked so nicely.”

Half of her wondered what would happen if she kept trying to provoke him. Her luck had held out so far, but luck was a treacherous thing. One of these days, the King might just decide that her insubordination is not so charming after all, and recategorize her from a bit of harmless entertainment to a genuine threat. If such a thing happened, Verity had the unpleasant feeling that she would only learn of it when the noose was put on her neck.

That her father would rally all of Arland’s allies against her assailants, and be sure to win a crushing victory, was rather cold comfort.

“Do you need more convincing?”

His mouth skimmed her ear as he spoke, and she couldn’t suppress another shiver.

“Perhaps you’re just as bored of this miserable backwater as I am,” he speculated with a deep sigh. “But unlike you, princess, I have business in this part of the world, and I cannot simply abandon it to entertain myself.”

She was deathly curious about his mysterious business, but there was no way to ask which wouldn’t provoke him further.

She turned around.

His eyes seemed to gleam in the darkness, or perhaps her mind was playing nasty little tricks on her.

“Well?” he asked. “What will it be?”

It was reckless, she knew it was, but she did it anyway. Hadn’t she always done so, from the first day they met? She might as well see the matter through to the bitter end, in the manner in which she began it. She had no one to blame but herself.

Turning about and standing on her tip-toes, Verity said again, “I told you, I’m bored of this subject.” She let her eyes drift shut and leaned forward to brush her lips against the corner of his mouth.

He reacted as she knew he would, grabbing her about the waist and pulling her against him, pressing his hard mouth against her lips like a starving man.

She really much preferred it to talking.


	3. Harsh Whisper - rated M

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For @the-duelling-tophat's prompt: 30 - Harsh Whisper.

“Put your hands on the wall.”

The words were as rough as the voice that spoke them, as the unfinished planks she felt against her palms as she spread them flat, against her cheek, pressed to the wall. The grating texture of half-sanded lumber against her soft skin and the sound of his voice were all she could sense. Her eyes were squeezed tightly, unnecessarily shut under the linen, dark upon dark. The absence made every texture sharper, clearer. Not just the rustle of cloth disturbed or the heat of his body pressing her against the wall, but every small thing that she ordinarily could ignore.

“Pay attention, Verity.”

She was so breathless that she was almost panting, but somehow she found enough air to quip, “If you would stop teasing me and just–”

He pressed more tightly against her back, a solid wall of muscle between her and the rest of the world, and trapped her hands on the wall under his. The feverish heat and intensity radiating from him were so dizzyingly strong, she almost didn’t notice his lips skimming her neck, her cheek, her ear.

His whispered voice was no more than a breath, close against her ear. “But the teasing is the best part.”

Verity gasped out a laugh. “The _best_ part?” she asked. “Really?”

“Because it makes everything else worth waiting for.”

That, she couldn’t argue with.

“Give me time, Verity,” he whispered, and the rough edge of his voice told her just how badly he wanted it. “I promise I can make it worth your while, and I’ve never broken a promise to you yet.” 


End file.
